


Once Upon a December

by lunarknightz



Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: Christmas, Dancing, Gen, Peace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-28
Updated: 2016-09-28
Packaged: 2018-08-18 06:27:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8152303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunarknightz/pseuds/lunarknightz
Summary: River has a wonderful Christmas.Set sometime before the movie. While there are some allusions to things in the movie, it's rather spoiler free.





	

Shepard Book had given River the most fascinating and curious Christmas present. She was so taken with her gift that River couldn’t take her eyes off of it, even as she was spin, spinning, spinning around inside of Serenity.

It was a small box, with ornate carvings of beautiful creatures, bears, and birds with golden plated wings. Upon opening, the box would start to play a beautiful, sweeping melody. And River would dance, dance, dance, dance, to the music, letting the melody take over her mind. 

The music filled her mind, pushed all the deep, dark voices far down, away from River. Made them shut up.

She’d forgotten what it felt like to be alone in her own head. No strangers, no friends, no Serenity, just River, and the music, spin, spin, spinning away from the voices, from the world. 

This is how it used to be, before the needles. She’s always been able to read other people, like open books. Stretching her mind, River could know what they knew, or have the skill to do what they did. They called her smart, but she was gifted in a different way. 

And then River had gotten sick of being ordinary, of knowing just what everyone else knew. She wanted to know more, to know about everything that existed in the ‘verse. River wanted knowledge that she could own, factoids and figures that other people couldn’t and wouldn’t understand. She wanted to fly, high like an albatross in the sky.

So she turned to books, she started off reading by reading Simon’s school texts, and when she finished those, River asked her parents for more books. Her parents didn’t hesitate, and River amassed quite a library, on all and every subject. The Tams valued education, and they saw no limits to how far an excellent education would help their daughter excel. The Academy was another tool to help her excel. 

At the Academy, they took River’s gift and turned it to a curse. She couldn’t stop reading other people. She couldn’t turn off her gift, and it began to control her. 

As she spun to the music, River remembered what it felt like to be herself. To be an individual, not a mish-mash of thoughts and feelings. She was no longer this creature, equal parts Simon, Kaylee, Jayne, Mal, Inara, Shepard Book, Wash, and Zoe. She was just herself. And it was a wonderful, heady feeling. 

Tomorrow it would not be Christmas anymore. The crew would have to go back to work; they had jobs to pull, clients to meet, people to shoot. The calm, relaxed atmosphere that had settled over Serenity would dissipate, and things would get hectic and crazy again. Today, the corridors were free for dancing, but tomorrow, they would be for walking. 

The music would have to stop, eventually. And River would return to the state of jumbled minds and words, where she never quite knew what she was saying.

But for one day in December, River was given the greatest gift of all. As she spun, she did not miss who she had been, nor fear who she might become. 

River simply was.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted December 2005.


End file.
